SILVER CITY >> The Grant County Sheriff's Office gave out D.A.R.E. banners to school administrators Friday to remind kids to stop bullying and not to start abusing drugs or alcohol.

D.A.R.E. — Drug Abuse Resistance Education — is a program that the Grant County Sheriff's Office started five years ago. Each year deputies offer a program for kids at Cobre Consolidated District in Bayard and Harrison Schmitt Elementary School in Silver City. The curriculum is intended to provide positive reinforcement and a dose of prevention. The deputies offer the D.A.R.E. class to fifth-graders so that when they get to middle school, they are already prepared to deal with the peer pressure they are likely to encounter to get involved in activities they shouldn't.

"It starts in sixth grade, in the middle school," Grant County Sheriff Raul Villaneuva said. "We want to educate them before they get there."

Villaneuva also said having the deputies in the classroom helps in other ways.

"A lot of kids see us as the enemy," Villanueva said. "Having an officer interacting with them, a real law enforcement officer, they see we're not bad people. We're there to help."

The D.A.R.E. program runs each year in December.

"We wanted to show support for the program by purchasing banners for the schools," Villaneuva said. "When they're displayed, it's a reminder that they've gone through this program."

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Villaneuva said he is grateful for the support of the schools and to Cobre and Harrison Schmitt administrators for allowing the Sheriff's Department to continue to bring D.A.R.E. to their schools. And he says he has seen a difference in the five years since the program began to be implemented.

"Even if it means we're saving a kid or two here or there, it's important," Villaneuva said.

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